I Found a Phone

7/9/2014
I was walking through the woods close to my house yesterday. The woods have lots of sticks and leaves on the ground, a big, tall tree, a dried up creek, and a big empty spot about halfway through. I had just gotten to the empty spot when I noticed someone's cell phone laying there on the ground.

The cell phone didn't look that old, maybe about two years older, and it was dirty. It had cracks on the screen, scratches on the cover, and a foggy camera lens. I decided to turn back around and take it with me, to possibly find out who the owner of the phone was.

When I got home, I turned on the phone to see what it had on it. It still worked, to my surprise. I don't know what I was expecting, there certainly wasn't much on it. There weren't many apps, mostly just the pre-installed stuff like calculator, camera, Play Store, that kind of stuff. But, there was one other app, YouTube. I'm not a YouTube user myself, but I knew how to work it so I opened it. Whoever the past user was, they had a channel. A channel called "cyqgNoeCChI". It's a handful, I know.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find any info about who this person was, as they haven't uploaded any videos. The user didn't have a profile picture either, just a green background with a white "C". I started to give up at that point, if I couldn't find out who they are on YouTube I probably couldn't find them at all. That is, if it wasn't for one more app they had. The photos app.

I tapped on the photos app and it brought me to something I really wasn't expecting. Then again, I don't know what I did expect. There were thirteen pictures and one video. As I scrolled through each photo, they all had pretty vague and blurry pictures of what looked to be the woods by my house. Some of them were just blurry pictures of the grass or woods, one was of the big tree, and there were a few blurry ones of the creek.

However, I was not as intrigued by the photos as I was of the video. The clip was eight seconds long, and it had no title. I decided before I go any further, I should upload them to my computer. I found a fitting USB cord and plugged the phone into my laptop. I put all the pictures on my desktop to review them. But I really wanted to see the blurry-thumbnailed video.

When I opened the pictures up, they were all taken on the 30th of June, 2014. Just eight days before I took my walk. Eight days before I found that phone. The video had the same date, too. I decided not to hesitate any longer and see what the video had to offer. It appeared to be someone in sandals running as the phone shakes violently. He starts getting out of breath about five seconds in, presumably they've been running longer than the video shows. Then, it abruptly ends when the person trips and the phone flies, ending the clip. Most likely landing exactly where I found it.

I didn't know what to say. I had so many questions that needed answers. Why were they running? What were they running from? Who is this person? I watched the video over and over again just to come up with some kind of explanation, but I could find nothing. I couldn't see anymore than someone's sandals and blurry running. My head was spinning round and round.

I didn't know what to do after that. I really didn't. I sat down on my sofa and thought long and hard about what I just witnessed. In the end, I decided I would ask around to see if this belonged to anyone, and figure out what to do with it then. Then I got another idea: I'll post the video to the user's YouTube. I decided that would be the best way for anyone to figure out what happened to them.

As the video finished uploading, it gave me the URL for the video. I looked at it for a minute, then I looked at his channel name.

The URL was the same as his channel name.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyqgNoeCChI